Dropping The Decibels and Adding Carpet - Quiet, Cool, and Carpeted

We add carpet as well as lower the decibels to our street project Camaro

If you are an avid reader of this fine magazine, then you already know we are constantly showing ways to make your Bow Ties better. We install suspension systems to improve handling, build motors to lower e.t.'s, basically anything to make them perform at a higher level. Sometimes we can get so caught up in going fast that the vehicle loses all the creature comforts and becomes less street friendly. Take for example our Back To The Streets (BTTS) project Camaro. This '71 was a Lexan-windowed, gutted-doors, fiberglass-clipped bracket car that was all kinds of fun on the track, but could not be driven on the street.

A while back we took on the task of putting it back to a legit street machine. The drag-style suspension has been swapped out for a more corner carving-type system from Fat Man, the gnarly small-block was swapped out with a pump gas-friendly ZZ454 big-block backed by a Level-10 4L60E trans, the Lexan was replaced with real glass from National Parts Depot (NPD) and Mercer Count Vo-Tech School in New Jersey did the sheetmetal and paint work. The car is shaping up to be a great cruiser, but now we needed to start addressing the interior. As you can assume, the interior of this former drag car was pretty much gutted except for one seat and a six-point roll bar. Those items are now gone and a full interior is in the works.

Before we move forward with the interior installation, we wanted to lay down a layer of sound dampening material to go under the carpet to keep the cockpit nice and quiet. This project will also receive a quality audio system so adding a little bit of sound dampening material will allow it to perform at its full potential.

No matter how good speakers are at producing crisp sound, they will still have to over come the ambient noise in the interior. Case in point: Have you ever noticed that your stereo sounds clearer and the bass a little deeper when you stop at a light? That's because the road noise cancels out some of the frequencies in the music. The best way to quiet down the interior is to apply something over the largest metal surface in the interior, which is the floorboard. Typically cars had a few little squares of acoustical material and carpet, which does a decent job, but we want something better than decent for this project.

To accomplish that task we contacted Design Engineering Inc. (DEI), makers of the Boom Mat line of products. Boom Mat products are specifically designed to reduce road noise and dampen vibrations that plague older vehicles. Installing the products is pretty straightforward--peel and stick or spray and shoot, so most of your time will be spent disassembling your interior. Since our car was a stripped down drag car we had no real interior to deal with so we will start with ripping out the stock seats we found at a swap meet.

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18 Now our project will be nice and quiet while we drive down the road and our ears can just process the sounds desired, like the stereo or chatty passengers. Another added benefit to using these products is the insulation properties. The car will stay cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. Not shown in the article was us spraying inside the doors with the Boom Mat Spray. This stuff goes on like a rubberized undercoating, but is way denser.

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Dropping The Decibels and Adding Carpet - Quiet, Cool, and Carpeted

Here is the BTTS project Camaro and the assortment of Boom Mat sound dampening products. We ordered up a box of Boom Mat that came with 20, 12x24-inch sheets, 18 square feet of Under Carpet Light (UCL) and 9 square feet of the Boom Mat Moldable Noise Barrier.

Here is the BTTS project Camaro and the assortment of Boom Mat sound dampening products. We ordered up a box of Boom Mat that came with 20, 12x24-inch sheets, 18 square feet of Under Carpet Light (UCL) and 9 square feet of the Boom Mat Moldable Noise Barrier.

1 DEI also offers all the tools and sundries needed to install the products. The roller and razor knife are pretty standard, but the company's Boom Mat Hi-Temp Spray Adhesive is an awesome glue that can be used to stick down the UCL. The Boom Mat spray is a vibration-dampening compound specifically engineered in spray form for those hard to reach locations like inside the doors.

2 Before you can really put these products in properly the interior needs to removed. All we had to worry about was the seats, but you will most likely need to remove the seats, seat belts, kick panels, sill plates, gas pedal and center console if so equipped.

3 Once the floorpan is completely exposed, vacuum up all the crumbs and dirt to give the Boom Mat the best chance of sticking. Office new guy Kristian Grimsland did the deed.

4 Even thought the Boom Mat's adhesive is pretty stout, it won't stick to oil or grease, so a little thinner is used to remove any that is present.

5 The Boom Mat is constructed of a viscoelastic polymer layer protected by an aluminum top layer. It comes in 12x12.5-inch and 12x25-inch sheets and features a strong adhesive backing that's unaffected by extreme hot and cold temperatures.

6 With the surface ready we laid out the sheets of Boom Mat to figure out the best use of the material. Some of the sheets will over lap a bit, but that's OK since it will be under a cushy layer of carpet padding and carpet.

7 Once we were happy with the layout, it was time to get sticking. The Boom Mat has adhesive on the backside that is exposed when you peel off the protective paper.

8 The best way we found to apply the Boom Mat is to lightly drop it in place and stick down the center first, then work out toward the edges.

9 The roller really helps get the stuff down nicely and helps prevent trapping air bubbles. To get the full benefit of the Boom Mat, it has to be stuck to the metal. If you happen to trap an air bubble, use the razor knife to puncture a hole and let out the air.

10 We can tell you now this stuff does not stretch, so in the low areas so you will need to cut slits where you need it to go down into a hole. It's a good idea to save all the little scraps, as they can be used to fill small voids. After we had the floor covered entirely in Boom Mat, we went and poked all the holes for things like seat belts and seats.

11 The next item of acoustical control we will be employing is the Boom Mat Moldable Barrier. This stuff is is a highly flexible 0.5 lb-ft squared acoustical barrier designed as an added layer of protection.

12 It comes in roll form 54 inches wide. We ordered two yards to make sure we had enough. We unrolled it into the interior and trimmed it with razor knife.

13 This stuff really conforms to the shape of the floor, but for more intricate areas, applying a little heat with a heat gun will let it mold to the perfect shape. If you don't have a heat gun, you can simply warm it outside in the sun.

14 The Under Carpet Lite (UCL) looks very similar to carpet padding, but it's an engineered product that has a lot of thought put into it, instead of just chipped up rags and lint squished together like typical carpet padding. This stuff is pretty easy to work with and is held in place with the Boom Mat High Temp adhesive. Per the instructions, we sprayed both sides and let the glue tack up or dry slightly before we stuck it down.

15 Now that our floor pan had all its new layers of acoustical protection, we could install the Auto Custom Carpets kit we got from National Parts Depot. The kit is an 80-percent rayon, 20-percent nylon blend in a deep black color. It has the correct "loop" for this vintage Camaro and even has a factory correct heel pad bonded on the driver side. Before we laid it the car, it was removed from the box and set outside in the sun to soften up.

16 We started with the rear section because it goes under the front section. Since the carpet is molded to a factory floorpan and we have a nice puffy layer of the UCL in place the carpet fit perfectly. When doing this make sure to line up the footwells and the molded sections where the front seats bolt in. Do this and everything else will line up just fine.

17 The front section follows right along and also fit perfectly. Again, we lined up the critical points in the toe kicks, which put it in the correct position. We needed to trim a little off the sides at the kick panel area, but other than that no cuts were made just yet. We still need to wire the car so the carpet will need to be removed so we didn't finish trimming it or gluing it down. We will revisit the carpet installation in a later issue so stay tuned.

18 Now our project will be nice and quiet while we drive down the road and our ears can just process the sounds desired, like the stereo or chatty passengers. Another added benefit to using these products is the insulation properties. The car will stay cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. Not shown in the article was us spraying inside the doors with the Boom Mat Spray. This stuff goes on like a rubberized undercoating, but is way denser.